Ricketts endorses Reggae Girlz Foundation

President of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF), Michael Ricketts, said his association is in full support of the plans by Reggae Girlz Foundation co-founders Michelle Adamolekun and Lisa Quarrie to start a football academy for young women in Jamaica.

Adamolekun and Quarrie said the academy would serve to develop young girls from six years old for future national teams as well as to provide scholarships for Jamaica’s female footballers.

Ricketts told The Gleaner yesterday that his federation held talks with the foundation heads last week and they are now looking at ways to see how they can get this project off the ground.

“We have had discussions with them to see how best we can help our different women’s programmes,” said Ricketts. “Of course this is one area that we will support. We will work closely with them in whatever area they are going to help us,” he added.

Discussions ongoing

“They were here for the two games against Chile last week and so we had discussions on a number of things and these discussions went very well,” Ricketts said. “We have to ensure that we play our part in whatever area we can to make this become a reality,” said the JFF boss.

The veteran administrator added that having a female football academy here in Jamaica will certainly raise the profile of the sport in Jamaica.

“This would be huge boost if we were to have a girls football academy here because it would be for girls only,” said Ricketts. “We are in the early stages and we are having discussions with them and I am hoping that there will be some positive impact coming out of this foundation that is based in Miami,” he said. The foundation was launched in January 2018 with a mission to inspire, educate, mobilise and support the next generation of young female footballers in Jamaica. The foundation launched a $10 giving campaign recently from which they hope to raise as much as J$30 million.